11. What is Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar all about?
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This article is from the sci.lang FAQ, by Michael Covington (mcovingt@ai.uga.edu) and Mark Rosenfelder (markrose@zompist.com) with numerous contributions by others.
11. What is Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar all about?
Several things; it really comprises several layers of theory:
(1) The hypothesis that much of the structure of human language is
inborn ("built-in") in the human brain, so that a baby learning to
talk only has to learn the vocabulary and the structural "parameters"
of his native language -- he doesn't have to learn how language works
from scratch.
The main evidence consists of:
- The fact that babies learn to talk remarkably well from what seems
to be inadequate exposure to language; it is claimed
that babies acquire some rules of grammar that they could never
have "learned" from what is available to them, if the structure of
language were not partly built-in.
- The fact that the structure of language on different levels
(vocabulary, ability to connect words, etc.) can be lost by injury
to specific areas of the brain.
- The fact that there are unexpected structural similarities between
all known languages.
For detailed exposition see Cook, CHOMSKY'S UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (1988),
Newmeyer, GRAMMATICAL THEORY: ITS LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES (1983), and
Pinker, THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT (1994).
This theory is by no means accepted by all linguists, though many
would agree that some core part of language is innate.
(2) The hypothesis that to adequately describe the grammar of a human
language, you have to give each sentence at least two different structures,
called "deep structure" and "surface structure", together with rules
called "transformations" that relate them.
This is hotly debated. Some theories of grammar use two levels and
some don't. Chomsky's original monograph, SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES (1957),
is still well worth reading; this is what it deals with.
(3) Chomsky's name is associated with specific flavors of transformational
grammar. The model elaborated over the last few years is called GB
(government and binding) theory; however, Chomsky's 1995 book on Minimalism
contains significant departures from earlier work in GB.
(4) Some people think Chomsky is the source of the idea that grammar ought
to be viewed with mathematical precision. (Thus there are occasional
vehement anti-Chomsky polemics such as THE NEW GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL, which
are really polemics against grammar per se.)
Although Chomsky contributed some valuable techniques, grammarians have
_always_ believed that grammar was a precise, mechanical thing. They
are highly divided, however, on the nature and function of those mechanisms!
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